Chapter 92: Driving Home With A Loud Mouth

He didn’t respond immediately. His mother had just reached for Maya’s name, and that was enough to make him careful about the next thing he said.

His first instinct was to glance toward where Rose had gone. He stopped himself.

He turned back to his mother.

"It was her face," she said, catching the look before it settled. "Not saying they look alike. Something about her reminded me. That’s all."

"Rose is Rose." Flat, not defensive. "They’re not the same person."

"I know that. I’m your mother, not a psychologist."

"Sometimes hard to tell."

She let that go. "What I want to know is whether you actually understand what you’re getting into with her." She set her glass down without drinking. "Not interrogating. Just asking."

He studied his plate for a moment.

"Not everything," he said. "But I know she matters to me." A beat. "That’s enough for now."

His mother looked at him for a long second. Then her expression softened.

"She knows who she is," she said.

"Yeah." He was already eating again. "She does."

The conversation found easier ground. He ate, and whenever a question got too close to something he didn’t want to discuss, he bought himself another bite.

Then she brought up the money.

"I appreciated it," she said. "The five thousand. I want to make sure you understood what you were actually giving me."

"I know what it is."

She tilted her head toward the bottle at her elbow. "There’s a lot of money at this table tonight."

He followed her gaze. Reached over and angled the label toward the light.

Read the price.

Read it again.

Four hundred and thirty dollars.

His expression didn’t move. Four hundred and thirty dollars for a bottle of wine. He’d remember that.

"Is that coming out of the five thousand?"

"The five thousand is mine now." She said it like reminding him of a rule he already knew. "You gave it to me."

"I gave it to you for the business."

"And this is one dinner first." An eyebrow went up. "Would you like to argue with me?"

He considered it.

His mother’s eyebrow went up another fraction.

He picked up his fork.

"What investments?" she said.

He looked at her.

"You said you’d been investing. You never explained what that meant."

"There’s an app. It tracks spending, investments, returns. Stuff like that."

"That sounds like something you read off a pamphlet."

"The terminology’s a little dry."

She looked like she was about to follow up anyway. Then a chair scraped somewhere behind him.

He turned.

Rose was making her way back between the tables.

Good.

He hadn’t realized he’d been waiting for that.

"Sorry," Rose said as she reached them. "Something came up. Didn’t mean to take so long."

"You weren’t long." His mother waved it off. "We were just talking."

Rose glanced at him once. He gave her nothing. She sat back down, picked up her fork, and looked at her noodles.

"Sauce is still good."

His mother laughed. "It always was."

The table settled. His mother asked Rose about the mural, and this time it sounded like genuine curiosity rather than an interview.

Rose talked about the commission, what she’d talked the building owner into versus what he’d originally wanted, and corrected herself twice in the telling. Adrian listened until she mentioned the scaffolding.

"At least they can’t charge you for falling off it."

Rose gave him a look.

His mother laughed.

He went back to eating.

Rose continued, explaining the changes she wanted to make to the design and why the owner had finally agreed to them. Adrian didn’t know enough about murals to contribute much, but he knew Rose well enough to tell when she was excited about something. She spoke faster when she was trying not to sound excited.

He liked that.

He didn’t mention it.

At some point his mother set her fork down on a near-empty plate.

"I’m glad you came," she said to Rose. "We’d love to have you over properly sometime. Real dinner, not a restaurant." She glanced at Adrian briefly. "His father would like to meet you."

Rose looked at him.

He met her eyes. A small shift in his expression. Nothing that needed explaining.

"I’d like that," Rose said.

His mother was already working through the calendar. Rose offered a Thursday two weeks out. His mother accepted it immediately.

Adrian checked his schedule. Thursday was clear.

"I’ll be there," his mother said.

He hadn’t said anything yet.

Apparently that part had already been decided.

The waiter appeared and cleared the last plates. Adrian’s hand moved toward the bill before he’d fully decided to reach for it.

His mother’s palm came down over it.

"Don’t."

"I gave you the money."

"And I’m spending some of it on one dinner." She pulled the check to her side. "You can pay for something else someday."

He gave up.

They’d spent enough of the evening talking about money already.

They finished. His mother reminded Rose about the Thursday. Rose said she’d remember. Then they were outside, his mother walking with them as far as the parking lot before stopping.

"It was genuinely lovely to meet you," she told Rose, with the specific warmth she saved for people she’d already decided she liked.

"It was lovely to meet you too."

She turned to Adrian and squeezed his arm once.

"Call me."

"I will."

He watched her go.

Rose had come here tonight as his girlfriend. Now his mother was already planning another dinner with her.

That had happened faster than he’d expected.

He didn’t dislike the idea. He just wasn’t used to things moving that quickly.

He unlocked the car and reached the passenger side first. Opened the door. Rose paused before getting in.

"Thank you," she said.

He closed the door and came around.

The car was quiet once the doors closed. He gave it a moment.

Rose broke it.

"I actually had a good time."

"You survived." He started the car. "That’s different."

"You were more nervous than I was."

"I was perfectly calm."

"You checked the bottle price."

He pulled out of the spot without answering. She was already smiling. He caught it in his peripheral and kept his eyes on the exit.

"There’s still the thing," she said.

He glanced at her.

"The thing I said I needed to tell you after dinner." She held his gaze. "You forgot."

He hadn’t forgotten. It had just been buried under dinner and his mother and Maya’s name landing at exactly the wrong moment.

"I didn’t forget."

"You forgot."

She reached into her bag and took out her phone. Held it for a half-second before handing it across.

That was enough.

It was from Jenna. Sent forty minutes ago.

Maya called me. She was asking about you and Rose.

He read it once. Then again.

"I didn’t know what to tell her," Rose said. Her voice was even, but the evenness cost something. "So I ended it. But she’s going to try again."

He handed the phone back.

Maya wasn’t supposed to know yet.

If she was already calling Jenna, that wasn’t happening anymore.

"Do you think she actually knows something," he said, "or is she guessing?"

"I don’t know." He paused for a beat, casting his gaze momentarily to the steering wheel like that’d help him explain. It didn’t. "That’s the problem."

Maya was Rose’s stepsister. Whatever happened next, Rose was going to be stuck in the middle of it.

"We don’t panic before we know what she actually has," he said.

Rose nodded. Didn’t look entirely convinced.

He stopped at a light. His thumb moved toward Jenna’s number.

Then he stopped.

Jenna had been nervous enough to send a message instead of calling. Putting her on the spot now would only make her harder to read.

He opened the thread instead.

"Texting," he said.

"Less pressure," Rose said. "Alright..."

He navigated to Jenna’s private chat and typed.

Adrian: Hey. You around?

The message got delivered and read almost immediately after he’d sent jt. A moment later, three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.

Jenna: Yeah. You free right now?

He looked at Rose, who’d already leaned over and was now watching. Damn she was curious. He typed.

Adrian: Yeah. I am... You said you knew something. About Maya. What happened?

He kept his eyes on the road, taking only a few glances at his phone as he drove. Rose shifted slightly in her seat, mumbling something he barely registered. But only after they’d gotten to the next straight stretch, did he check the phone.

Jenna’s messages arrived one after the other.

Jenna: Oh yeah... lol... You won’t fucking believe it. I met up with the bitch when we separated.

Adrian raised a brow, but the next message caught his attention before he could say anything.

Jenna: It’s nothing serious though. But she was trying to slander you. So I just told her you had moved on with that red-haired slut.

Adrian’s eyes widened, What the fuck?